This event will take place on a Thursday evening, please note the irregular date/time. This program will be recorded and available to our members. JGSGB members: Program is free. Members do not need to register.You can find the Zoom link by logging in to your JGSGB Membership account. Once logged in, use the "What would … Continue reading Richard K. Miller – How to Do More Genealogy in Less Time with Goldie May’s Genealogy Tools →

Program Description: This program continues JGSGB’s series of artificial intelligence topics, and will be helpful whether or not you attended prior presentations.  Using AI tools effectively can accelerate your research tasks.  Writing targeted prompts is perhaps the most important technique for using generative AI.  The prompt is how we direct AI tools to give us … Continue reading Blaine Bettinger – 10 Generative AI Prompts Every Genealogist Needs to Know →

Program Description: Enid Cherenson contributed to the research, translation and annotation of Rachel Karni’s powerful Holocaust book Childhood on the Run. Enid made breakthroughs and forged new international connections, uncovering previously unknown genealogical materials. This presentation explores several incredible wartime survival stories, highlighting one young boy's escape from Vienna, his survival as a hidden child … Continue reading Enid Cherenson – Escape from Vienna: Two Cousins, Two Journeys →

Program Description: A century ago, Susan Liebman’s four-year-old uncle was said to have been killed when his mother’s heavy dressmaker's mirror fell on him. Had it really? Digging into old records, Liebman uncovered a family secret that told her there was a deadly mutation in her family, inherited from her father’s side.  This presentation explains … Continue reading Susan Leibman – The Dressmaker’s Mirror: A Family Secret, a Deadly Gene, and the Records That Told the Truth →

Program Description: Genealogists are more than familiar with passenger lists for immigrant arrivals in American ports. However, that is only half of the puzzle. What about where they left from? This presentation explores the large collection of passenger lists for those departing from the port of Hamburg, Germany. Roughly one million Jews left via this … Continue reading Logan Knight – Hamburg Passenger Lists 1850-1934 →

Program Description: Explore the trades that were the heartbeat of shtetl life. What roles did tailors, shoemakers, and merchants play, and what hidden skills did they master? What professions were respected and which jobs were “less desirable”? How did economic shifts threaten age-old trades? Explore some rare, unfamiliar crafts that played a part in the … Continue reading Evgenia Kempinski – Shtetl Trades: How Our Ancestors Made a Living →

  Nancy Korn - From Breslau to Britain: German Jewish Refugee in Kitchener Camp and British Army Pioneer Corps   Program Description: Using photographs and personal letters, Nancy Korn will illustrate the story of her great-uncle Hans Korn, born in Breslau, who, despite having fought for Germany in WWI, was imprisoned in Buchenwald in the … Continue reading Nancy Korn & Fay Bussgang – Celebrating Our Members’ Stories →

Program Description: This talk demonstrates how, step by step, you can work backwards in time to find records that will help you trace your family from the U.S. back to “Russia”. We will see the value of finding original images, not just index listings, and will show how to cope with conflicting information while using … Continue reading Alan Shuchat – Tracing a Family From Brooklyn Back to “Russia”, Step-by-Step →

Program Description: Eighty-four years after the Jews of Šeduva (Lithuania) were murdered in the Holocaust, the Lost Shtetl Museum opened there. The museum's exhibits and memorial grounds will be highlighted to show what Šeduva, its vibrant Jewish community, and shtetl life throughout Eastern Europe were like before World War II.  Marlene will explain how her … Continue reading Marlene Englander – The Lost Shtetl Museum: Jewish Lives Remembered in Šeduva, Lithuania →

Program Description: By focusing on the legal restrictions on residency, movement and occupations imposed on the Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement, this talk explores the impact of prejudice on Jewish culture, politics and everyday life in what was one of the largest Jewish communities in the world.  The Pale of Settlement, which restricted … Continue reading Elissa Bemporad – The Boundaries of Belonging: Jewish Life in the Pale of Settlement →